This Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine has just been sold on eBay a few days ago. The lucky winner paid a quite handsome sum for this beauty. I would have placed a bid myself but the price got too high for my involvement in the age of Heraclius. I would pay more that 100$ just for a Maurice. This follis of Heraclius is splendid for its appeal. The full legend and the faces of the emperors are rarely seen on this type, otherwise very common. The year III is the most common for Heraclius but in this grade you will find one in hundreds.

These types are not necessarily badly struck, the problem is that they are most of the time overstruck. This example here is also overstruck but with a strong fresh die.Well done Wolfgang (although my intuition pointed me in your direction from the beginning... ). The seller has beautiful byzantine but little knowledge. Lucky for us!

That is a beauty, Wolfgang! Thank`s for posting it, vercingetorix. I have never seen one like this. That is why I really like this thread; it is a great way to learn about and understand Byzantine coins.

Today's COTD is actually a .. seal. It is currently on sale on the Forum's catalog under number 14678. Most of the postal seals are poorly preserved and flatened, being made of lead. What is interesting about these seals is that they were often employed to seal bags of coins carried by the official post service to the garrizons on the frontier on on differents fronts where campaigns were on progress.

OK, that's enough of the early stuff for awhile. Now for all you Latin trachy fans out there, here's a scarcer example. Obverse: St. Peter standing. Reverse: Virgin Orans, with hands to right. 15 x 22 mm. Sear 2039.

Of course I'll be showing more coins in the future but I hope that you have enjoyed my initial exploration into the Heraclian Dynasty. Hopefully I'll have a Mezezius someday to help truly complete the list

When Philipp Grierson started publishing the Dumbarton Oaks collection in 1973, of the only two specimens known of this type, none showed a readable legend, thus the coin was treated as "Anonymous Follis" Class N So when David Sear wrote the revision of his book, he listed it as no. 1903A, still as an "Anonymous Follis", but already mentioning the possibility, that it may in fact have been struck by one of the pretenders.

Another specimen showed up when the William J. Conte Collection was sold by Baldwin´s in 1994 and two more have been auctioned by CNG in the last 10 years. All known specimens are overstruck on earlier coins and thus they are very crude and of course in poor condition. The coin here isn´t really a beauty either, but it shows parts of the legend that confirm the attribution to Nicephorus Basilacius. To the left of the obverse the beginning of the legend is clearly visible:

+NIK (HFW) ... and to the right the most important part ...(RO) C bAC... is also visible. Ref. SEAR 1903A, D.O. pp. 705-6,